Poisoned Grain Kills 25,000 Blackbirds

Grain laced with a pesticide and deliberately spread on a farm field near St. Louis killed at least 25,000 blackbirds, most of them belonging to a protected species, investigators said. Joe Khayyat, a spokesman for the state Department of Natural Resources in Springfield, Ill., said the owner of the farm was cooperating with the investigation but no one had been charged, and it had not been determined who put the grain in the field. The birds were found last week with their beaks pointing to the ground, leading naturalists to believe that a violent storm or downdraft might have flung them to earth, crushing them. But laboratory tests indicated pesticide was the culprit, Khayyat said.